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This tip is about the how to run a basic vulnerability scan on your data center Linux servers with Nessus. So read this free guide, How to run a basic vulnerability scan on your data center Linux servers with Nessus step by step. If you have query related to same article you may contact us.
How to run a basic vulnerability scan on your data center Linux servers with Nessus – Guide
Nessus is one of those tools that every network, system and security administrator should have at their disposal. One time up and working, you can easily set up scans to check data center servers to ensure everything is in place. up and up. And knowing whether or not your systems suffer from vulnerabilities is one of the most challenging aspects of your job.
Fortunately, Nessus scans are incredibly easy to run. They take some time to complete, but the startup process for a scan should not take long.
You need to have Nessus up and running. I covered this process in How to install the Nessus vulnerability scanner on Rocky Linux. So be sure to follow this tutorial to have a Nessus instance ready to use.
How to to define up a Nessus scan
Log into your Nessus instance. Let’s first run a basic network scan. Click New Scan in the upper right corner of the window. On the screen that appears, select Basic Network Scanning.
In the next window, you first need to give the scan a name (which can be any human-readable name) and a destination (an IP address or FQDN).
Since this is a basic check, you don’t need to define up credentials, then just click Save and your verification will be ready to run.
How to run the rescan on Nessus
You should find yourself in the saved scan list. click on the run button (right-pointing arrow) associated with the scan you just created.
Start the scan and relax and wait for the results or leave for another task. The basic check should take 5 to 20 minutes to complete. Once finished, you can click on it to see all the vulnerabilities discovered.
After running the scan on an updated Ubuntu Server 20.04, Nessus came back to report no worrisome vulnerabilities. However, running Nessus on my Pop! _OS 21.04 came back with a slightly different story.
A Rocky Linux scan came back with a couple of critical vulnerabilities and several high vulnerabilities
If you see a label marked as Mixed, be sure to click on it so that it displays all the different vulnerabilities associated with that particular package. And if Nessus discovers any vulnerabilities, be sure to address them immediately, otherwise your data center servers are at risk. If you run an upgrade on the server hosting Nessus, you may lose your connection to the scanning platform. If this happens, you will need to restart the Nessus daemon with the command:
And that’s it for running a basic vulnerability scan with Nessus. Next time, we’ll dive into some more complicated scans. Until then, continue to check for vulnerabilities in data center servers. Make it a habit, otherwise these vulnerabilities can infiltrate and leave your systems open to attack.
Final note
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